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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com

All stories relating to First Canadian Place

The Dish

Restauran-TO

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Prairie Girl to open second Financial District cupcake shop (UPDATED)

Test batches of Prairie Girl’s banana split (rear) and raspberry cream cheese early birds (Image: Karen Lipsey-Savage)

Less than a year after opening up shop on Victoria Street, Jean Blacklock, the Bay Street escapee behind Prairie Girl Bakery, has announced plans for a second location of her popular cupcake shop. The new store will open on November 14 in in the Marketplace at the concourse level of First Canadian Place. As at the original location, the cupcakes will all be baked on site, albeit in a tiny 450-square-foot space. The expansion couldn’t come soon enough: with the weather getting colder, downtown’s cupcake heads will appreciate the lineups moving indoors.

UPDATE: Blacklock tells us the First Canadian Place location will also be stocking “Early Birds,” little old-fashioned cakes with toppings that, as she puts it, “may be more appealing in the morning than a swirl of butter icing.” The menu of 11 flavours of early birds—like raspberry cream cheese with a coffee base or banana split with with dried cherries, nuts and chocolate—will be available until 10 a.m. If things go well at the new location, expect a couple more Prairie Girl outlets to open next year.

The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

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Weekly Lunch Pick: a classic roast beef sandwich in the Path

Brick Street Bakery’s roast beef sandwich (Image: Renée Suen)

There are two ways to cope with a heat wave at lunchtime: barricade yourself inside an air-conditioned restaurant or grab something cool and dash back to the office. The gourmet made-to-order sandwiches at Brick Street Bakery in the Path fit the latter bill.

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The Hype

To-Do List

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The one thing you should see this week: a virtual tour of Toronto’s streets

Luc Courchesne’s You Are Here (Image: Toni Hafkenscheid/BMO Financial Group)

This week’s pick: Luc Courchesne’s You Are Here

Tucked away on the 68th floor of First Canadian Place sits a tiny space. And in that tiny space sits a domed, circular screen, so small that it can only surround two people, but so big it contains entire blocks of downtown Toronto.

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The Dish

Opening

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Brick Street Bakery expands westward into financial district

Brick Street Bakery's popular Distillery location (Image: Easternblot)

Baker Simon Silander is taking his much-loved east-end bread, sandwich and pastry chain, Brick Street Bakery, right into the belly of the beast: the Path tunnels below First Canadian Place. With approximately 90,000 people passing by this site every day, there’s potential for some serious dough. The new location is an expensive venture, but Silander’s hopes are high that it will pay off, given all those boardrooms upstairs in need of catered breakfast meetings and working lunches.

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The Dish

De-licious

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The Best of Winterlicious 2011: Toronto Life’s 62 favourite restaurants

(Image: Renée Suen, from the torontolife.com Flickr pool)

January is upon us, and for many hungry Torontonians, that means one thing: Winterlicious. The menus are less predictable than previous years—crème brûlée’s out,  lentils du Puy are in—so even the ’Licious haters might have a reason to take advantage of the festival this year. We’ve already named the 12 menus that we think are the best bets, but that doesn’t begin to cover it. Here, find Toronto Life’s 62 favourite Winterlicious restaurants, complete with menus, reviews and reservation numbers.

Winterlicious runs from January 28 to February 10. Reservations are accepted from January 13 onward (January 11 for American Express users).

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The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

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Where to eat lunch this week: Vertical

This financial district mainstay keeps the food fresh and the patio busy

The late-summer lunch: duck breast on the Vertical patio

The place: Vertical’s lofty canopy-covered terrace rises above the hubbub of King Street and draws the crowds on this cool summer’s day.

The crowd: Business-casual 30-somethings clink martini glasses while two CEO types linger over their dessert plates and wrap up negotiations. Nobody is rushing to get back to work from the glorious patio.

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The Dish

Neighbourhoods

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The Path Guide: 24 spots worth getting lost for

(All photos by Karon Liu)

Even those who were born and raised in Toronto have a hard time navigating the city’s underground labyrinth, with its dead ends, identical food courts and utterly useless maps—not to mention the complete lack of sunlight, which can drive a person mad. Still, the world’s largest below-ground shopping complex is like a city of its own, with lots of unique shops, restaurants and attractions that are worth the slight possibility of getting cabin fever. An added incentive for people going to a game or a concert: most of the restaurants offer free parking. Here are 24 places to check out.

Urban Decoder

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What’s going to happen to all the marble once it’s removed from First Canadian Place? Is there any chance I could buy some of it?

(Photo by Steve Russell/Toronto Star)

(Photo by Steve Russell/Toronto Star)

It’s true, Toronto’s tallest office tower will soon be rid of 6,000-odd tons of ­Carrara marble, to be replaced by glass panels. The main reason for the $100‑million-plus facelift is safety. In 2007, a 300-pound chunk plummeted from the tower’s 60th storey onto the roof of the third-floor mezzanine. Hazards aside, 35 winters have turned the once snow white stone the colour of slush.

If you’re still keen to own a part of the city’s architectural past, Brookfield Properties, the building manager, hopes to make some of it available to the public for free in the spring. The rest of it will be recycled, crushed into rooftop ballast (a heavy layer that secures roof insulation) or donated to a local art group.

• Question from Maury Neufeld, Mississauga

Wondering about the waterfront? Curious about construction? Perplexed by politics? Ask the Urban Decoder a question here.

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